Latest News

iOS 11 could use the iPhone’s NFC chip for more than Apple Pay

A new framework gives iOS apps access to the short-range protocol.

Apple may have an awkward history of avoiding and then embracing NFC in the past, but new developments at this week's Worldwide Developer's Conference indicate those days are long gone. Apple already announced new NFC functions coming to the Apple Watch with watchOS 4, but according to documents for the upcoming iOS 11 release, the iPhone's NFC chip might also be handling much more than just Apple Pay transactions and Passbook check-ins.

iOS 11 Expands Your iPhone's NFC Capabilities

Apple at WWDC 2017 introduced Core NFC, a new iOS 11 framework that enables apps to detect Near Field Communication tags.

iPhone users are prompted with a "Ready to Scan" dialog box. After holding the iPhone near an item with an NFC tag, a checkmark displays on screen if a product is detected. An app with Core NFC could then provide users with information about that product contained within the tag.

Core NFC is currently supported by the iPhone 7,8 and X and the framework is read-only for NFC tags of types 1 through 5 that contain data in the NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF).